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A long time ago, I went to an auction at a house down the road from me. There was a box of old and sort of trashy sewing stuff, and I was the only one who bid on it. I got it for a song, and was hoping there would be something neat inside.

I was in luck! These very tiny carved ivory things were in there. One is a carved and painted little lantern. It looks like it was attached to something at one time, but now, all that is left is the tiny lantern thing on the left in the photo. I put that on one of the dressers in one of the tatami rooms of my ryokan, and it looks like a vase or something. At some point, I may hang it like a lantern, but it looks kind of cool as a vase.

The next ivory item is an egg. It screws apart in the center, and has a tiny chicken inside. I wish I could have gotten a better picture of these with my phone.

The other item is shaped like a bullet. It had chinese writing painted on it, but that is mostly worn off. When you screw the end off, it contains three very tiny dice with little dots on each side. I may try to find someplace in the ryokan where I can put the egg and bullet thing at some point, because they are very cool. In the meantime, I thought I would show them off here, because, after all, they are miniatures!